Was That A Smile?
by youronlyastory
Summary: Tiny adventure before Doomsday but post Fear Her. The Doctor is known for cheering up Rose in so many GREAT ways it's unreal, but this time, she needs his full attention and with one cheeky Time Lord and a crazy mother's party, he may know the perfect way to get her smiling. Based on the song"I Will Be" by Avril Lavigne. Fluff, not that I know what that is. TenXRose -sort of.


**Reader, if you are reading this then I am extremely lucky!**

**I re-read 'Reader' in the voice of Strax...**

**Anyway, I own nothing but the plot and implore you as every fanfiction writer does to please please please review. It's the only way I can improve.**

**I hope that you enjoy it and if you don't then fair enough, it was a little bit of a random story rather then a real planned one but that is usually the root to most of my storylines. Thank you so much for reading and perhaps listening to I Will Be by Avril Lavigne,. It was the inspiration to it I guess :) Enjoy**

**Youronlyastory**

* * *

"Doctor?"

The Doctor's head snapped round. He'd been in the control room, fiddling with the underneath of wires and lights while Rose slept. She had taken The 'Beasts' words pretty literally and ever since The Olympics, she'd tumbled into a deeper oblivion of wonder which had left her unlike her usual self.

He'd been worried sick of course. He was paranoid to leave her alone or even put her in any place where a "war zone" had a chance to commence, he couldn't help thinking that she might have a right to worry.

She looked up at him, her blonde messy hair tied away from her face and her thick eye make-up smudged, she looked unlike herself and stood in her long pyjamas waiting for some realization that she'd been there for a while. The Doctor hadn't noticed, the presence that he felt with Rose never went away. He had been imprinted onto him since that first meeting. She never left his side.

"Rose?" He said gently, afraid he might alarm her if he cheered her name with an enthusiastic smile as live wires nipped and tucked at his skin and suit.

"Hi…"

"I thought you were in bed?" He said jumping into view . Rose couldn't help but smell what seemed to be burnt flesh.

"Couldn't sl-"

"Sleep? Again?" He interrupted.

She shook her head, smiling a sad smile, she'd not been sleeping right for a while. He feared that a sense of home-sickness was due its monthly visit and what with her feeling like she was now wasn't helping her case; he knew that he'd have to think of something big to get her back to herself; His Rose Tyler.

An uncomfortable silence only broken by the TARDIS humming took place and for once The Doctor wished that Rose would do something violent just to know she had some recognition of her emotions. She looked to the floor, her eyes tired and her frame recumbent.

"Well, why don't I just tell you what I'm doing? That normally sends you to sleep. Or I could leave you to wonder and I'll go fix something in another room"

_What needs fixing?_He asked himself. _Maybe she just wants to go home, maybe she doesn't want to be here, may-__be this is her way of saying 'she wants out'__?_

She smiled slightly and shook her head.

"In all honesty, I don't really want to be alone. That and I can't sleep so don't send me to bed like I'm a child because nothing's working and I'm fed up of waiting for something that's not going to come…" Wincing slightly at her words, she looked at him.

_Neither do I…_

He smiled slightly, remembering that tone, that ever warming and warning Rose Tyler tone and sensing his opportunity, he stepped closer towards her, grabbed her soft hand and kneeled to the floor as if proposing the impossible.

"Well, Rose Tyler, I don't want to be alone either…" Horror crushed her face. What was he doing?! Was this supposed to help? Was he going to…

This was the moment, they'd always skirted the boundary line with the flirting, but this was it! He was going to say it...

She was going to hear it, he really did. All that she'd hoped and wished for was leading up to those perfect words.

" I love spending my time with you, it's way more fun than waiting for you, Sleeping beauty! So will you accompany me to The Powell Estate?"

_Sleeping beauty?! Ooops, I meant to say something better like __**Snorax **__from that Pokemon __game __I like..._

"Home?!"she scoffed.

_Ahh, not impressed. Sounds like the normal Rose_! He grinned to himself loving her disappointment.

He jumped up and smiled. "Trust me. Now go into that wardrobe, pick up the Union 'flag' T-Shirt and that jacket, then fix up your hair in that frizzy way, you know the one where he looks like you've been playing about with the TARDIS electrics."

_Talking about TARDIS electrics, where did I put that non –burning gel from the Planet Oxofiliate?_

"Doct-?"

"Stop complaining and just do it, will ya?!"

She was left stuttering as he pushed her into the far end of the TARDIS but did as she was told.

* * *

To a massive surprise something must have worked because ten minutes later, a very Blitz-British Rose paused, then ran up to the Doctor and leapt into the most welcoming hugs in about a week. He caught her in her arms as he always did.

"What are you wearing?!"She exclaimed, clinging to his shoulders as she inhaled the familiar scent of the jacket. She was beaming, the Jacket! The Jacket he wore when she first met him.

"When you first met me…" he lowered his voice at her but kept his (rather burnt) hands on her arms. Her hair was lighter than it had been and shorter of course since when he last saw it in that style, but that small memory of his previous regeneration grew a little with pride and he couldn't help but grin at it.

"I was full of fire and revenge, I was told _I'd die in battle_. Now look at me, I've proved them wrong, like I always do and now, you'll do the same." _You always do…_he wanted to add, wrinkingly his nose as if to shake off the freckles.

He took an intake of breath and waited for her to say something.

"But-" There it was, the threat of a counter argument. Dammit, he was a genius! He'd rise to any challenge and a challenge for a famous smile of hers was worth it.

"Buuuut what?"

She mimicked his childish grin and rubbed his jumper fabric through her hands as a deviation from the prospect that she 'jinxed' their time together. She didn't believe in all that nonsense, but the idea of having to give up the TARDIS-it haunted her.

"Why are you wearing all that? It doesn't even fit you anymore, it practically drowns you out!" She laughed as he modeled it then did and imitation of some sort of angry cockney. He didn't even realise he was taking the mick out of himself let alone her first love.

"Well, considering we've got a party to go to, I considered this the best 'attire'"

The Doctor was swamped in the black leather jacket, and familiar jumper. The only thing he hadn't changed was his trainers. He needed to be able to walk at least. If not more…and there would be more…

"Party?!"

* * *

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MUM!"

She hadn't even brought a card or present, so she had to lie and say it was in the TARDIS, it was good to see her mum, happy, popular, smiling.

"Rose? Rose! You made it!"

Running up, she grabbed Rose and hugged her tight kissing her cheek like she always did. She smelt of Rose's favourite perfume.

"I thought you'd forgot."

Just as it usually was in a 'Jackie Tyler party', the hall, barely around the corner from the actual Tyler apartment, was alive with some sort of cheesy 70's music and crazy pink and red lights streaming across the tightly enclosed room . People in ridiculous outfits swarmed the hall and the majority seemed to be drinking and smelling of sweat from the mad dancing.

"Oh machine?" She laughed as if this explained everything, which it did but still. What had she been so worried about before? The Doctor always looked after her. And it was her job to do the same. If it wasn't without danger, it wouldn't be as fun.

Saying that...Where was the Doctor?

Jackie, her outfit created to suit some sort of fur-less black cat, stormed towards The Doctor from a corner of the room and gave him the similar treatment to which Rose had endured. He clearly wasn't best pleased about this and groaned and make faces like a six year old boy.

"At least someone remembered it was fancy dress!" Jackie muttered poking him in the ribs as she did so.

"Fancy dress?! " He squeaked hysterically. "This jacket is a beauty and technically an antique, I'll have you know!"

He was ignored and Rose shot him a questioning look to which it took him a few minutes to understand.

"Oh!...Happy birthday."

The rest of the night was spent yelling over music telling people he was "A doctor" and "no just a friend!" to which was ignored as many times as it said.

"Nanna, this is my friend; The Doctor. He's the one who took me to France, didn't mum tell you?" Rose introduced, pulling the Doctor to sit at a table and then kneeling besides a scary and angry looking women who could be Jackie's moth-. Well, she was. France was an excuse, a crap excuse which mother Tyler had created forcing Rose to go along with it.

"Oh yes…bit old for you isn't he Rose? That and he needs a comb through his hair. Look at it!" She pulled at it harshly (ignoring the Doctor's yelp of pain) to show Rose how much 'product' was used and how perhaps he 'bats for the other side'.

With that, Rose's Nan, someone who smelt of really old cigarettes in a mix with Tuna and cucumber sandwiches slapped either side of his face, exaggerating how he could've shaved beforehand. Which he did, just she couldn't have noticed with the crazy strobe red and blue lighting now making him look like some maniac.

"Bit scrawny, too. He's almost as thin as you, girly!" She crowed, jabbing him just like Jackie had done moments ago, in the ribs.

Rose burst into a fit of laughter as the Doctor looked to her, appalled. The music was growing louder and was from a ridiculous band named after a sort of drink. 'Orange champagne'? Something like that anyway and to make matters worse, they had arrived when all the food had been eaten and all that was left was leftovers for the bins, or crap bits of garnish. All this and none of the barmen served any sort of Banana daiquiri or banana milkshake! OR BANANAS! This was a PARTY AND THERE WAS NO BANANAS!

He reminded Rose of this a bit later on where she poked her tongue out, smiled and delved into his pockets. He did have a banana in there. Good.

It took a while for The Doctor to actually fulfil his clever conducted plan on how to resolve the slight feeling of homesickness and his idea on how to get his Rose back to normal. It was very late and most of the people had left, leaving just the four of them left. Jackie, Rose, the Doctor and The DJ.

"Hey," The Doctor said, charming his way to the DJ suspecting that despite his gender, a smile might help him get his way it usually did. "Don't suppose you could be amazing and play this?" He asked. The DJ was a teenager, he had dark black hair longer than Rose's and an outfit of a gangster-chav ( If it was an outfit that was?). He gave a sly smile and raised his dyed eyebrows.

"Try'na impress the girl?" He said, eyeing the direction to which Jackie had run off to in desperation for the toliet. Hr stomach seemed to disagree with the mix of cheap food and cheap alcohol.

"Kind of...But not that girl…if you'd even call Jackie a 'girl'?" The Doctor felt a smile play on his lips as he handed over a simple USB. This wasn't a reference to the fact she was dressed as a cat, well, right now she was hanging over the toilet and Rose who had just been sent away before she was vomited on, sat at a table, and watched eerily, questioning as she always did, what the Doctor was doing.

"Are you joking?! She's a MILF!" The guy roared nodding to himself in satisfaction.

"MILF? How do you even have knowledge of what a Milfe is? They live around 30,000 billion miles away in the planet Milfrox! They're bright green with hawk like eyes and spurt green gunge...Uh. I think can see the resemblance" the Doctor said, bringing his hands down knowing that the DJ had seen enough of the Doctor's imitation to care.

The DJ gave a crazed look but played the tune off the memory stick. It did what The Doctor planned it would.

Hearing the tune, she turned and grinned, poking her tongue out (again) as she always did.

"If you care to take this dance?" He yelled, beckoning her to the now empty and popped balloon/party popper mess of the dancefloor.

Rose grinned, clasped her hand in his and followed his lead.

"Don't get my arm up my back..."She teased jokingly. He rolled his eyes and continued to twirl her and count the steps.

"I'll think you'll find Miss Tyler, I showed you some pretty decent moves already."

And with that, and the beautiful wartime music suiting his memory perfectly, the Doctor and Rose Tyler danced. Continuing to do so long after the song ended.

"The Oncoming Storm," She said, muttering it as a term of belief as if a fairytale.

"And the BadWolf," He finished, dipping her to the floor in grace and looking into the eyes of Rose Tyler and seeing for once, a faith he believed in.


End file.
